


I'll Never Forgive Myself

by deadeyedwritergirl



Category: One Direction (Band), Zayn Malik (Musician)
Genre: Angst, Famous Liam, M/M, Non-Famous Zayn, University Student Zayn, break up fic, singer liam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-12
Updated: 2017-01-12
Packaged: 2018-09-17 00:54:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9297134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deadeyedwritergirl/pseuds/deadeyedwritergirl
Summary: Their lives are just too different for it to ever work. They'd cheated their fate for 18 months but it's finally caught up with them.Or a Ziam break-up fic. Famous!Liam Ordinary!Zayn





	

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! Thank you for choosing to read this fic. I hope you like it. Please don't forget to comment or leave kudos if you enjoy it. I'd love to hear from you - Good or bad, just not mean.
> 
> **Disclaimer: I do not know One Direction or Zayn and Liam. The events in this story do not depict real life. They are made up purely for mine and your entertainment. Any mentions of religion do not necessarily reflect mine or the real people's views or even the values of the religion. So please be reminded that this is a work of fiction and everything herein is just to drive the plot.

Liam can’t sleep and for once he doesn’t mind. He doesn’t mind because for once he isn’t being kept awake by jetlag, stress or what people are saying about him. This time it isn’t anything negative keeping him awake, in fact it’s the exact opposite. The thing keeping him awake in the late hours of the night is his balloon heart that feels like it’s being inflated in his chest. 

As he turns in the arms that hold him close, a feeling of warmth and contentment spreads itself through him, making him feel safe and at peace. He likes that feeling because it isn’t something he’s gotten to feel often since his career had taken off just over half a decade ago. 

When you’ve lived your life in the spotlight, having cameras following your every move and writing songs that map out your every feeling and state of mind, it’s difficult not to feel vulnerable. 

He loves his job. Making music is all he has wanted to do ever since he was a little boy, but the side effects are sometimes difficult to swallow and it doesn’t get easier with time or experience. 

In fact, it feels like it is getting worse, the longer he’s in the industry and the more people start becoming aware of who he is. There are more people looking into his life now, judging his choices and breaking him down, the more tickets he sells. The fact that his life often ends up splashed across the pages of tabloids only makes it more difficult to keep private. And so, this feeling of safety and comfort that he feels right now, lying in these delicate but strong, warm and loving arms isn’t something that Liam is used to, and he wants nothing more than to just bask in it now.

He wants to do more than just lie in his boyfriend’s arms and soak in the feeling that is growing in his chest. He wants to get up and shout it from the window of his 21st floor hotel room. He wants to call the press and announce to the world that he, Liam James Payne, is in deep and utter love. He wants everyone he meets to know how happy he is, what a great person Zayn is and how wonderfully he treats Liam. 

But he can’t.

He thinks it might have been easier to accept if it was his record label and management who wouldn’t allow him to come out, or if he was terrified of losing his career in the heterosexually dominated industry. If those were the reasons then he might have shrugged and accepted his fate because those things would have made sense. They would have been things beyond his control, reasoning he couldn’t fight against and therefore had no choice but to go along with. 

But those aren’t the reasons for his closet. Although his management aren’t too happy about his relationship with another man, they can’t force him into a closet because his contract includes a clause that prohibits them from interfering in his personal life and relationships, thankfully. 

He could announce his relationship in a late night tweet and they wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. 

So they aren’t the problem. 

As far as his career goes, he feels like he has established himself enough in the industry over the last five - almost six years to be able to survive a coming out, and if not – he isn’t opposed to losing his spot in the top three most well-known and well-liked artists in the world. As long as he could keep making music, even if it was for a handful of fans, he wouldn’t mind. 

These aren’t the reasons for this heaviness that often follows the elation of being in love. 

The reason for his self-imposed closet is his boyfriend, Zayn. He had made it clear from the start that he doesn’t want the spotlight. He doesn’t want to have the world look at his life from under a microscope and watch them dissecting it as though it is a class experiment to be investigated. And Liam understands where he is coming from.

 It isn’t easy to live under the harsh glare of camera flashes, and it probably seems ten times more intimidating when you are just a normal university student like Zayn is. He hasn’t told Liam outright that he doesn’t want the world to know about them, but Liam knows him. He knows how private Zayn keeps his life, and he knows how the idea of people ever knowing more of his life than he intended makes Zayn uncomfortable and when Liam had broached the subject a few months ago, Zayn had bristled and muttered about it not being the right time and maybe they needed to wait until they knew where their relationship was going before getting the public involved. So Liam had deduced that his boyfriend wasn’t ready to become the gay lover of a world-famous pop star. 

He has since tried to come to terms with their closet. He has tried to make the most of their situation but there are so many restrictions to their relationship because of it. 

He can’t reach out and hold his hand when they walk in public, or peck him on the lips when the feeling takes him. He can’t share anecdotes about their relationship with acquaintances because he doesn’t know who will end up selling it as a story to the media. The only time he is free to be and do what he wants with his boyfriend is when they are away on secret getaways or in his or Zayn’s apartments.

Liam hates the feeling that comes with the hiding. It isn’t just the discomfort of having to constantly remind himself of what he can and cannot do at certain times and in certain situations. It is more than that. It is the flood of insecurity that comes with knowing that your lover doesn’t want people to know about you. 

He finds himself trying to fight off questions that resound in his head like _doesn’t he trust me? Doesn’t he believe I’m in this for the long haul? Is this just a phase that he wants to be able to sweep under the rug in the future?_

But, he doesn’t want to go there. Not tonight. Tonight he wants to lay languidly in the safety of this bed and imagine that that is all he needs. So he cuddles close to Zayn and lets the dream take him.

* * *

 

_**2 months later** _

"Why can't I tell people that I'm in love with you?" he asked quietly enough that the silence that now reigned in the room was barely disturbed. "I've lived a put-on life for the past six years and I don't want to do that anymore. I just want to be me. You make me, me. And now you want me to hide that. You want me to live like I'm doing something wrong by loving you!"

Zayn didn't answer him. He just turned and walked towards the floor-to-ceiling windows and looked out into the dark night. They were in the middle of the city but there were very few lights shining against the inky sky.

It felt lonely and sombre.

Maybe that had something to do with the time of night it was, or maybe the world around them was mimicking their relationship, the place they seemed to have fallen into and had no idea how to get out of.

"Am I?" Liam asked, once again breaking a silence that seemed to rule too long between two people who were supposed to be in love and in tune with one another. Zayn didn't turn around still. He just stood at the window, contemplating the night and what the darkness that seemed to engulf the city symbolised.

"Am I wrong for loving you? Did I make a mistake thinking that we're in this together? Do you even love me?" Liam asked. Right at that moment a light, Zayn had found to focus on in the dark cityscape, went off. Switched off no doubt by its retiring occupant. It didn't mean anything, or at least it wasn't supposed to but it felt analogical to what was happening in their hotel room. It felt like a parallel he didn't want to acknowledge just yet. He turned around then, to look at Liam who was mopping up a rogue tear with the sleeve of his Henley top.

"Why won't you say anything Z?" Liam asked him, frustration straining the sadness in his voice.

"Because nothing I say will heal this," Zayn finally spoke up.

"What are you saying?"

"You want things from me that I just can't give you Liam. I'm not ready for everything that you come with," Zayn confessed gravely.

"But you _knew_ ," Liam said, more to himself than Zayn, "You knew coming into this – into us – that I came with all of this," he said, gesturing to the hotel room but meaning a whole lot more than just that. Zayn knew what he was referring to. 

Liam was referring to the camera flashes and the shouting voices that accompanied him wherever he went. He was talking about the tabloid columns that speculated about and sensationalised his every move and the millions of fans that lapped it up. He was talking about the life of a world famous singer. 

And he was right, Zayn had known going into their relationship that Liam came with all of that. He had even convinced himself, somehow, that he could handle it because he wanted Liam that much. That hadn't changed. The ache in his chest told him that he loved Liam just as much as he had that first day the singer had serenaded him during a sound check for one of his shows, possibly even more in that moment.

But he had a lot to lose if they went public with their relationship. He could lose his family. 

They would never understand it. They would never accept that it was love between him and Liam. As far as anyone in his hometown was concerned, a man could never love a man in the way that Zayn loved Liam. It was haram, it was wrong and it was unnatural. An abomination of a coupling that they would never acknowledge. If his relationship with Liam went public, his family would be ostracised by their staunch Muslim community. 

He had tried to protect them in the past by fighting himself and the crushes he would have on men. It had worked for the most part, that is until Liam had come into his life. 

He was a whirlwind of crinkle-eyed smiles, happiness and carefreeness that Zayn had never experienced in his guarded life. He had tried to fight it, but Liam was too strong a force to fight and he'd given in to the need to love and be loved in the way that he had deprived himself of for so long. 

And now there he stood, devastated to the point of numbness because he had to make a choice. He had to choose between hurting the person who had embedded himself so deeply in Zayn's heart in a short time or ruining the lives of the people he had known and loved his entire life.

“I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry,” Zayn whispered into the deadened night.

"We don't have to come out," Liam pleaded, already knowing what Zayn's words were alluding to. The dread was beginning to pool in his stomach and his heart was beginning to ache like a hot poker had been stuck through it. 

"I'll let it go. We can go back to the way we were. I'll accept it, I swear."

"It's not fair though, Li. I can't expect that of you. I can't put all of my baggage on you and expect us to work. You already have enough to handle with the entire world coming for you just because you're you and so _beautiful_ and _talented_ ," Zayn almost choked on that admission, "I won't let you have to carry my burdens and worry about having to hide my secret for me too. You deserve more than that," he said. "You deserve the world and happiness. You don't deserve to have to pretend to be dating someone else just to keep people from speculating about us. You don't deserve the life of a dirty secret and you should never let anyone reduce you to that. Not even me. You deserve so much more than that.”

There was a beat of silence as the words sank in. 

“You need someone who will be brave enough to stand by your side and proudly hold your hand while those flashes go off and not give a damn, someone who will kiss you on the street and tell the world how amazing you are and how lucky they are to have you. I won't ever be able to do that Liam. I can't do that."

"I love you," it was a plea more than a statement from Liam. Everything he had felt in the past year and a half that they'd been together felt like it had been compressed to fit into those three little words. Zayn had not known that a sentence could feel so heavy, but this one did. It carried everything that they were together and for each other over the past 18 months and now it also carried the weight of their demise. 

That's what that moment was, he was ready to admit it now. It was the end of what he had wanted to be the rest of his life.

"I'll always love you Liam, always. I just can't be the person you deserve."

A choked sob broke through the room and shook the air. The sound hit Zayn so hard it felt like the ground beneath him was vibrating from the pain.

Liam had dropped into the couch in the centre of the room and was now sobbing painfully and it was Zayn's fault. He had broken the heart he had sworn to himself to protect because he was selfish and a coward. He wanted to speak, to apologise and reassure Liam but the lump stuck in his throat wouldn't let the words through. They were caught in his chest, lost in the dull throb of his heart.

He turned to leave, his suitcase already waiting for him in a car downstairs, ready to take the redeye back to reality. The fairy-tale had ended, but unlike the others theirs didn’t end with a “ _happily ever after_ ”. 

He was at the door when the sniffles stopped and the words, "You're a liar!" were hurled at him.

"You promised you wouldn't hurt me. You're hurting me Zayn! You’re killing me!" Liam cried, another sob breaking his words. Zayn's hand stilled on the shiny brass handle, his knees feeling weak from the razor sharp words. It felt like his body had suddenly become too much for his legs to carry, like the only reason he was still upright and not crumpling to the floor from the crippling weight of what was happening, was his pale knuckled grip on the doorknob.

"Look at me Zayn!" Liam almost shouted in his enraged grief. 

Zayn shook his head, unsure if it was in response to Liam's words or to the tears that had finally begun to find their way out his eyes. 

He couldn't stay any longer. Every second he spent listening to Liam's sobs and feeling the pain that emanated from the room, was a second he started doubting himself, and doubting the decision he had told himself was the right one to make. 

So without another word, or even a glance back at the love of his life, he twisted the doorknob and made his way out on shaky legs. As he pulled the door shut behind him he heard one last

"I won't forgive you if you leave me like this," a desperate plea from a breaking heart. 

He closed the door and walked away anyway, a constant chant of, "I'll never forgive myself," resounding in his head as the elevator doors closed on his heart.

 

**Author's Note:**

> The End!
> 
> Please leave kudos and comments! :)


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